For almost 54 years the families of five people who were shot dead around 10pm on Sunday, July 9, 1972, have fought to establish what happened that day. A short IRA ceasefire had just ended. Soldiers were stationed in Corry’s Timber Yard in Belfast’s Springhill/Westrock area. An inquest a year later returned an open verdict.…
St John writes that before he was arrested Jesus, speaking to his disciples, told them: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus then went on to lay down his life…
People in Ireland and across the world have watched with horror as Ayatollah Khameinei’s regime has terrorised Iran’s people for over four decades, torturing, executing and disappearing people. There has been ongoing resistance by the people. Iran executed over 1,000 people last year, and some 52 already this year – men, women, and children, anyone…
For the past months the UK’s Parliament, like those in Scotland and the Isle of Man has been debating the introduction of assisted suicide. We are faced with a law which says that if a person has a diagnosis of terminal illness and has been given a prognosis of six months to live, that person can…
Last week a judge in Belfast found Soldier F not guilty of the murder of William McKinney or Jim Wray or of five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972. Some readers will remember Bloody Sunday, 53 years ago, when 13 unarmed Catholic civilians on a civil rights march were killed by soldiers from…
Last week a judge in Belfast found Soldier F not guilty of the murder of William McKinney or Jim Wray or of five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972. Some readers will remember Bloody Sunday, 53 years ago, when 13 unarmed Catholic civilians on a civil rights march were killed by soldiers from…
We’re killing the unborn, the elderly with few controls It is very hard to work out what the UK or Ireland’s values are now. Once Ireland was described as the land of saints and scholars, once there was a fundamental acceptance that human life was to be preserved and protected, save in the execution…
People were terrified, houses were burned, attacked and looted, petrol bombs, masonry and other missiles were hurled at police, writes Baroness Nuala O’Loan There was a palpable feeling of fear around Ballymena for a few days last week. Terrible violence erupted without warning. Those who have come from distant lands to live in the town…
In the four short weeks since Pope Francis died, we have seen the gathering of the Cardinals from all the corners of the earth, the papal election, the inauguration on Sunday of Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new Pope, Leo XIV, and his first public Mass as Pope. It is quite extraordinary that the Catholic…
The election of Pope Francis on March 13, 2013, following the unprecedented retirement of the scholarly, gentle, spiritual Pope Benedict came as a huge surprise to many of us. In my lifetime there have been seven popes: Pius XII, St John XXIII, St Paul VI, St John Paul I, St John Paul II, Benedict XVI…